Double Flee A

Last year I went to the courthouse to help out a friend who was in a jam. Basically we were going to lie our asses off and see if we could get him out of a DUI. The cop couldn't show up to testify (hallelujah, pun intended) so he beat it without us having to perjure. Which was awesome. Anyway, while I was walking around the courthouse looking for adventure (there were interstices during which my presence was not required), I got on an elevator. A lot of people got on that elevator with me, and standing in the back I noticed a pack behavior emerge. The thing was comfortably full (no one touching) and then a big fat guy, I mean LARGE, a lawyer I recognized from earlier, rapping loudly into his cellphone, got on with us, without any acknowledgement of the crowding.

At the moment he stepped on, the elevator sank. Everybody had the same feeling, which it took every bit of courage they could muster not to respond to by panicked screams, myself included. We thought we were goners. Eyes closed. Imaginary cables snapped. That feeling we all have in dreams, falling to our dooms, was about to be real. So this was what it had all been leading up to. We'd always kind of thought so. How simple. The elevator stopped sinking after at least four inches of drop and rose again. Mental inventory: We should have that looked at.

The lawyer didn't miss a beat, for all I know he regularly does this and loves it. It's not very much fun to be on the wrong end of some jokes and this was one of those. Anyway, the pack mentality. The people who were already on there backed up from the new occupant, touching each other rather than him, even though they knew each other only five second's worth better than they did him. And that's the little human nature lesson, I guess. Just by being there right off the bat you gain familiarity with the crowd; there's an automatic preference to trust you over the newer guy.

posted by dale @ 6:45 PM